The Formation of the Modern Ukrainian National Elite (Late 19th – Early 20th Century)

Abstract

The article analyzes the peculiarities of the formation and transformation of the modern Ukrainian national elite at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries within the unique socio-cultural coordinates of statelessness, colonial pressure, and the denationalization of the traditional aristocracy. It highlights the role of the humanitarian intelligentsia as the key agent of nation-building, which ensured powerful cultural mobilization but simultaneously led to the structural one-sidedness of the leading strata due to a lack of practical experience in state and economic administration.

A comparative analysis of the Ukrainian and Polish national projects is conducted, focusing on the transformation of their strategies during World War I: from evolutionary autonomism and "organic work" to military-political methods of struggle. The article explores the conceptual polemics within the Ukrainian intellectual discourse (M. Hrushevsky, I. Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, V. Lypynsky, D. Dontsov), as well as the processes of crystallization of local leaders at the micro-level. It is substantiated that despite the systemic crisis of the traditional legalistic leadership in the autumn of 1916, the transition to the military phase and attempts to integrate alternative models of elite leadership laid the theoretical and human resource foundation for the active phase of state-building during the Revolution of 1917–1921.